In the world of communications, a typical message that is sent across a communications network may be formatted to accommodate a variety of protocols. Each protocol adds additional headers and information to the message that are specific to the protocol. For example, a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) message that is sent across the Internet will add additional headers specific to SIP. In some cases, certain protocols may require the addition of headers that may not be used by other devices involved in the communication session. For instance, a single device involved in a communication session may require the use of a certain protocol and, therefore, may add a header that is only used locally.
This can lead to various problems. For instance, a header that is used locally may end up being sent to a remote communication device that does not know how to handle the local leader. If the header contains information that is unknown to the receiving device, the device may respond that the message is invalid. Another problem is that the size of the message may be too long for some of the protocols involved. For example, if the message uses the Internet Protocol (IP) as an underlying protocol, the message may be dropped if the message size exceeds the maximum size allowed by the IP. In addition, information in the header may contain security information such as an IP address of devices in an enterprise network. Exposure of this information may lead to security breaches. These types of conditions are undesirable and a solution is needed to overcome these problems.